


Ring lore

by Rogercat



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bearded Dwarf Women, Card Reading, Dancing, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Eregion, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, Immorality, Magic, Married Couple, Mystery, Second Age, Spiritual, Summoning Circles, Tarot, Terrifying Tolkien Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 06:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat
Summary: Annatar learns the hard way that Celebrimbor and Narvi are a powerful match together





	Ring lore

**Author's Note:**

> just a little warm-up before Terrifying Tolkien Week 24-31 October

Second Age of the Sun, year 1200:

 

Sauron smiled in a less than pleasant way when he saw Ost-in-Edhil in the distance. From his animal spies, he had learned that Celebrimbor, the last descendant of Fëanor, was living there. That Noldo would be a perfect pawn for his plans, he was said to have a great thirst for new knowledge and with the skills as a blacksmith he was claimed to have inherited from his father Curufin and grandsire, it would be perfect.  

 

Now he only needed a good disguise so they would not sense that it was him, ensure that it would not be linked to himself at all. And why not? He still had those shapeshifting powers as a Maia, it was just a very long time ago since he last had taken a fair form that also seemed harmless.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

It was a big festival in Ost-in-Edhil, held to celebrate the alliance between the Elves of Eregion and the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm. It had been the wish of Celebrimbor as the current Lord of Eregion, created in honor of the old friendships between Elves and Dwarves in the First Age before Thingol, the King of Doriath, had started that stupid chain of revenge between the two races. In a way, it was also his attempt to honor his paternal family, who had been known to make alliances in the wars against Morgoth with the Dwarves.

 

At a table in a corner of the large hall, Annatar could view items that Celebrimbor had created earlier. Just as he had expected, they all all made of skilled hands who knew how to work in a forge and he asked where the Lord could be found.

 

“Lord Celebrimbor? He is over there on the throne. But wait a little before you present yourself, his Consort is on her way here...”  

 

But Annatar did not listen, walking closer as he went through his carefully made plans again in his mind.

 

With the fine robe made of blue silk in various shades and silver thread to create the Star of his paternal House on the back and sleeves, Celebrimbor indeed looked very much like a Lord, the unusual heavy silver circlet on his head showing off a large emerald as centerpiece over the middle of his forehead. If there was anyone who had seen Fëanor at his might as the Crown prince of the Noldor before the creation of the famed Silmarils and Darkening of Valinor, that would be the similarity in the face between grandfather and grandson. Yet Celebrimbor had inherited a more rare blue eye colour among the Noldor from his mother, his hair was more towards a very dark brown that it almost appeared to be black and slightly more thicker. Furthermore, he did not have that kind of dominant, ingenious personality of Fëanor that could become the focus of everyone in a room.

 

“You are  an emissary of the Valar?” Celebrimbor asked.

 

“Yes. They wished to try and make better relationships between Valinor and Middle-Earth, atone for the damage that sadly proved to be unavoidable in the War of Wrath. I offered to take that mission,” Annatar replied in a charismatic manner, bowing his head as he spoke.         

 

“Tyelpe, I believed that we was in agreement to meet emissaries together after the reveal of our marriage and the blessing of Mahal which I was given?” a deep voice suddenly spoke up behind Annatar, with a hint of displeasure. A unusual deep voice for a female.

 

“My deepest apology for that error, beloved Narvi,” Celebrimbor answered and raised from the throne, walking past Annatar who turned around. And was faced with something he had never expected to find in a Elven city:

 

A Dwarf, one of Aulë's famed Stone Children. But not a male Dwarf. No, the lilac clothing was a silk dress bringing attention towards the dark skin tone, worn in a dwarven style which highlighted that it must be a style favored by the rare Dams born in the noble clans. Wide, puffed sleeves perfectly matching the high waisted dress, showing off the hourglass figure rather than the normally stocky build of the Dwarven race. The white-blonde, slightly curly hair worn in thick, pinned up braids and adorned with headpieces in silver and emeralds of masterly craftsmanship. Similar jewelry was worn in the thick beard which was finely braided. But what drew people in was not the contrast in colour between skin and hair colour, it was the eyes, sharp and watchful. A clear green colour just a few shades away from the emeralds she wore, which seemed almost to haunt one's soul after seeing them.

 

“Well, Celebrimbor?” Narvi repeated, one blonde eyebrow slightly raised. Her Elven husband just grinned, his whole aura seemed to change for a moment.  

 

“Yes. Annatar, this is my most beloved and treasured Consort, Narvi of the Orocarni Mountains and the finest Stonemason in Khazad-dûm of this Age. The one person I cherish more than anything else in this world and I shall never forget the moment when we first meet, even if we did not know what would become of that meeting,” Celebrimbor smiled in obvious pride, standing behind Narvi so he could hold around her with his arms.

 

Marriage between a Elf and a Dwarf?! How was that even possible!? Annatar was greatly taken by surprise, completely lost over the unexpected information. This disturbed his plans a great deal, since he had expected Celebrimbor to be a unmarried bachelor with no romantic relationships.

 

“That....is surely news that should bring great joy to Aulë, if he not already knows about it,” Annatar said with a strained smile, trying to keep his shock under control. It did not seem to help that Narvi kept staring at him, not looking away until a light cough from Celebrimbor caught her attention.  

 

“My apology, master Annatar. It is just the first time I have seen a Maia in person and I did not know that they could be so fair,” she explained before turning around to face her husband:

 

“Honey, the chain to the eight-rayed star amulet I got at our wedding, seems to have become a little worn. Can you look at it to see if it need to be replaced?”  

 

“The chain?” Celebrimbor wondered in confusion, holding up said amulet in eye sight to see if there was the defect she mentioned.

 

Then he saw something Narvi had seen earlier, by using the amulet in the same way as he did right now; Though the space of the small star made of gold wire, he saw another being where Annatar stood on the floor. A shape he knew too well from the First Age, from what little his uncle Maedhros had managed to tell of his imprisonment in Angband.

 

Masking Celebrimbor's shocked face into one of pain because she suddenly stepped on his toes with her heavier dance shoe, Narvi faced Annatar with a false smile while her husband muttered some curse words under his breath since she refused to move away the heel from him.

 

“You must be tired after a journey all the way to our city from the Blessed Realm. Perhaps you would like to rest, and meet us again tomorrow? The festival may be too foreign in taste for you right now.”

 

Seeing a chance to draw back and try to remake his plans, Annatar nodded before a servant showed him where the guest chambers could be found. Once the Maia was gone, Narvi spun around and picked up her taller husband around his shins to carry him. Given the height difference between them, as well some in strength, it looked a bit comical for those who had never seen it before.

 

“N-Narvi! I can walk myself!” Celebrimbor protested at no longer feeling the ground under his feet.

 

“You are coming with me right now!” she responded in a firm voice, walking out from the throne chamber with him still being carried like that. Judging from the snickers and whispers of people left behind, they likely mistook the reason for their sudden departure to be of a very different nature.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

Once in their shared bedchamber, Celebrimbor was almost carelessly dropped to the floor.

 

“ **What is** _THAT TRAITOR_ **to Mahal doing here?!** ” Narvi hissed in anger, revealing the deep abhorrence of Annatar she just barely had managed to avoid showing in front of everyone.

 

“Sauron managed to flee and hid himself after the War of Wrath. His fellow Maiar searched for him while the Valar imprisoned Morgoth in the Void. Seems like they failed to find him….” Celebrimbor answered as he rose from the floor, feeling almost as upset as his wife. They had no idea what Sauron wanted here in Eregion, but it could not be anything good.

 

“I do not doubt for a moment that he plans something to become a disaster for the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth!”

 

Pushing off a few parchment from his writing desk, Narvi opened a small box which held something irreplaceable for her.

 

“Your grandmother's tarot cards? I thought they were buried with her as a part of the grave goods at her burial, like how the rest of your family was buried with items which held a special meaning for them in life,” Celebrimbor said in wonder at recognizing what the rather worn items was, recalling how he had been present at almost every burial of her family.   

 

“Grandmother Frigga requested a new tarot card deck just a few weeks before her death, which was meant for me. I may not be a reader of the future like she was, but I did learn a few tricks from her. This is what I got this very morning, I had a dream last night which felt like a warning.”

 

Narvi held up two cards to him, and as Celebrimbor looked, the images revealed to be a dark shape surrounded by flames, which could be nothing else than one of those horrible Balrogs, and a tombstone.

 

“A Balrog?” he gasped with a shudder in memory of those creatures which was like a nightmare come true.

 

“It symbols disaster, the kind which means destruction of a massive kind. I think you can guess the symbol of the tombstone yourself.”  

 

“That one of us...or possibly both...will die?!”

 

The mere thought of losing Narvi was one of Celebrimbor's worst fears and nightmares melted together in one shape. Before that special Blessing by Aulë, as they called it, he had hold a ever growing fear for her ageing as the years passed by, a proof of that he would remain immortal until the end of time, bound to never change in appearance while she would. Nowadays it was no longer visible, but he could still remember how her hair had slowly began to turn grey, crows feet around her eyes and mouth....

 

He was brought back to the present by Narvi tossing a piece of chalk on his nose, deliberately missing his eye. 

 

“Quit looking as if you are back in the middle of a battle back in the First Age and help me draw up the Doors of Durin here on the floor. I have a possible idea for how to deal with that cursed Maia-Traitor, but we need some help from the Spirit World to do it.”  

 

“But...none of your family members were warriors outside your brother Odin, and I do not know if you are still close enough to your now very distant maternal kin…we do not know if any of your maternal uncles left descendants behind, your mother was the oldest sibling and married your father while her brothers was still fairly young...” Celebrimbor started, making Narvi look up from what she was doing.  

 

“Who said that it was _my relatives_ we are gonna try and summon as help?” she smirked at him, and realization drawned in his mind.

 

“I better use some drops of blood from me then, to act as a guiding line since they may be confused by a Dwarven spiritual ritual,” he smiled back at his wife, feeling more self-confident.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

    

Annatar had not been pleased to learn that both Celebrimbor and that Dwarf of his was unreachable for the next following days. No, he really could not imagine them as married, it had to be a badly translated word for their actual relationship. He had never understood the meaning of why Aulë even had created the Dwarves in the first place, what meaning they had in the world.

 

“Sir, the Lord and Consort summons you to a private meeting they wishes you to take part of.”

 

Well, Dwarves were mortals as well, right? He only needed to wait with his plans until that female Dwarf was dead and buried in the ground, so would Celebrimbor be open for his mind games. A perfect pawn to make his world domination happen.

 

Celebrimbor stood in the door to his private forge when Annatar arrived, looking like he just had stopped in the middle of a work.

 

“Narvi and I thought that you would like to try out something from her homelands. A little game, just for fun. Though be careful with what you may say, it is rude to not follow the exact rules.”

 

Narvi was sitting on a chair at a round table, with two other chairs empty. She was dressed differently this time, in a high ponytail which then had been braided and in a green everyday dress. As well having a thin veil over the lower half of her face so only her eyes was seen.  

 

“Welcome, both Husband and honored Guest. Let's see what the future holds secret, shall we?” she smiled at them.  

 

“Attempts to read the future? Put a stop to that nonsense, will you?” Annatar said in a dismissing voice. Based on the sudden fury in her eyes and from how she slammed both palms into the table, however, that had not been the best thing to say.

 

“ _Don't you disrespect me, sweet-talker! Don't you dare derogate or deride, you're in the unseen world of my grandmother now, not your world. And there is secrets on the other side you do not even know about!_ ” Narvi snapped in anger, while Celebrimbor discreetly smacked Annatar in the back of his head, much to the Maia's displeasure.

 

“Her paternal grandmother was a famous future teller in her time, and this is something taken seriously in Dwarven culture. So please keep your personal thoughts quiet until that you are back in your guest chamber, ok?” Celebrimbor whispered while he pushed the chair forwards so Annatar was seated.

 

Still glaring at Annatar for his comment, Narvi ordered them both to take three cards each from the deck she held out. Despite already knowing Celebrimbor's background, she still pretended to read the past and present of the cards he had taken:  

 

“Hailing from a royal line on the paternal side. Inheriting a strong part of what the family saw as their greatest strengths and skills. Pleased with your current life, though there is some understandable worries as well.

 

However, she did not openly say what the future held when she turned that card for him, but there was a knowing smile on her face.

 

“The future for you is promising, darling, it is many good signs of not having to worry much about how the past should affect you too strongly.”

 

Naturally, as a Maia Annatar's false past and present was a bit harder to read, but the cards told Narvi the truth.

 

“Hmmm….did you happen to be in conflict with someone before you left the Blessed Realm? Your past...seems to be pretty filled with minor ones. And your present is oddly blank.”

 

“Ah yes, Aulë got...displeased with some of my fellow Maiar under his command, I got pulled into it because one of them tried to swift the blame on me so he could avoid being scolded in front of everyone else,” Annatar smiled, trying to not show that he actually had not been in contact with his former Master for ages.  

 

Narvi rolled her eyes over what he said, that was a scene she had seen many times over her life, trying to avoid the consequences. Then, pulling up the card symbolizing the future, she spoke:

 

“But in your future, it seems like many of your plans and wishes will come true with time.”

 

In reality, that was a false card Celebrimbor had helped her make, trying to paint a image of Sauron as the triumphant Dark Lord which her dream had warned her about. And this time, caught up in the moment as he was when holding the false card in both hands, Annatar failed to hide the predator-like smile Sauron had been known for, his teeth becoming pointier and dangerous.

 

Narvi and Celebrimbor nodded in agreement while he was distracted by the card.

 

“Oh, right, there is something my husband needs to do in the forge now before he forgets it again. Perhaps you would like to watch it?”

 

Confident as he was over that his plans with Celebrimbor as his pawn indeed would start once Narvi was gone from this life, most likely a little sooner if he played it right without any suspicion aimed against himself, Annatar only smiled in response.

 

Only to suddenly be face to face with a almost literal spirit of fire. One with a scarred face he knew rather well from the beginning of the First Age.

 

“ _Hello again, Gorthaur,_ ” echoed the grim voice of Maedhros Fëanorion in the room. Before Annatar could react, the fire spirit passed through him, shedding his disguise and Sauron in his current form was standing there instead.

 

Now several more spirits revealed themselves across the room, having watched the trio the whole time. Not just Maedhros, but all his dead brothers who had fallen so long ago. And from outside the room, he could hear Dwarven prayers to Aulë from the high Priests Narvi had summoned from Khazad-dûm, the floor right below Sauron's feet revealing a massive circle with magical runes. When Sauron tried to move or use his own powers as a Maia to free himself, he could not, especially as the Sons of Fëanor acted like chains to bind him. Perhaps to remind him a little extra of the well-known humiliation the Maia once had suffered, Celegorm took the shape of Huan and pressed Sauron down on his knees.      

 

“I told you that there is some things about the Dwarven culture you should be careful about,” Celebrimbor grinned, kicking up a door to the forge where Fëanor himself could be seen as a fire spirit.

 

“ _I have kept the requested things ready for you, grandson._ ”

 

There was some of the fey madness in his eyes that Fëanor had carried in his last months of life, but he seemed to be in control of it right now. With a smile, Celebrimbor used a pair of pliers to hold up a bowl with liquid gold over a form used to create jewelry.

 

“Narvi dear, one last thing is needed for this sealing.”  

 

“With pleasure.”

 

Using some unknown dance movements he had never seen, Narvi spun around with her arms lifted high like she was dancing as part of a prayer to her Maker. One large silver hairpin with one side filed to become more sharp was drawn out from where she had hidden it in her thick braid, Sauron unable to pull back as she cut the sharp side of her hairpin across his throat. Blood began to immediately flow out from the deep wound while Narvi danced over to where Celebrimbor waited, a few drops of blood from the hairpin landing inside the gold he held up for her. Then he poured the liquid gold into the form to shape rings.   

 

“ ** _Betraying the Maker and dishonoring him by your deeds, following the Dark Lord, you will find that your crimes will be paid, Sauron the Deceiver!_ ** ” Narvi sang in the language of her race, runes now showing up around all over Sauron's body as he tried in vain to be free. Then, he began to shrink, the magical circle forcing both his body and soul into that ring Celebrimbor was making.

 

“ ** _Can you feel it? You're changing, you're changing. Your world is changing all right, I hope you're satisfied. But if you ain't, don't blame us. You got what you wanted with Morgoth, but you lost what you had with Aulë. You can only blame yourself  for this new realm of your domination!_ ** ”

 

Sauron's screams of horror was cut off as he was sealed inside the gold ring, miniature versions of the Doors of Durin and the eight-rayed Fëanorian star acting as seals keeping him inside, unable to break out.

 

“I think this will be the perfect gift for Aulë as a belated thank you for that special Blessing he gave you as a wedding gift for us, if we send it with someone who shall sail to Valinor soon,” Celebrimbor smiled as he placed the ring in a small box, feeling his family members hug him in goodbye before they soon would be summoned back to the Halls of Mandos.

 

“Yes... hold on, _what_ wedding gift?!” Curufin almost yelled out aloud in surprise over those news. Big wonder anyway, they were not exactly updated on news in their part of the Halls.

 

“Aww, little Tyelpe got married?” one of the Ambarussa teased from his place in the family group hug, making Caranthir scowl at them in warning over that they hugged him a bit too tight for his personal comfort.

 

“Why should I remain a bachelor and fearing marriage because of which infamous family I comes from? If I could not find a She-elf who wanted to look past my inheritage, then I simply had to look somewhere else. And Narvi was given the immortal life of a Elf after that Aulë spoke with the All-Father about how our relationship changed from friendship into true love,” Celebrimbor commented before bending down to kiss Narvi, smiling at the mixed response from his family around them.

 

“Joy, your grandmother will be happy to hear about your marriage and how you tricked Sauron into being sealed like this so his evil will not spread. If you can find Maglor and send him home to her, I think she would be even more happy to at least have one of us back,” Maedhros laughed from his place, keeping Fëanor from saying anything foolish about his grandson's very unexpected choice of bride.  

 

“I will try to do that about uncle Maglor, yes. But I am not returning to Valinor unless Narvi can come along. I will not have a marriage where we have to be separated across the world, I was already close to lose her once to her natural mortality as she aged before that Blessing,” Celebrimbor promised while Narvi handed over the box with the sealed ring with Sauron inside to one of the Dwarven priests to be taken away.             


End file.
